It’s Okay for You to be Wrong

This week was Quarterly Strategic Planning time and we took time to gather off site to work On our business. We had some good conversations and some not-so-good conversations but we got some shit done. We made some revisions to our 3 year plan to clarify a few goals. We revisited our Core Values, we we continue to agree are the right Values and now we need to work on the concentrated effort to communicate communicate communicate these to all staff. We actually had time to spend solving problems — we did well on small problems and, well, we still need practice at the larger items.

This was our most productive meeting to date. And yet, we still have a few that aren’t so sure about this. It’s too “touchy-feely” and you can see them wondering about the value of spending a day to argue over semantics. I can hear them thinking “I have real work to do.” And now I have an answer to them “it’s okay for you to be wrong.”

Sunday evening Rocky and I decided to join the church we’ve been attending. During the meeting, Pastor Dave talked about his philosophy in limiting drama at church. And it’s the phrase above. “It’s okay for you to be wrong..” End of conversation.

I wrote that at the top of one of my note pages. First directed at my disengaged colleague. Then at me. Um yeah … it’s okay for me to be wrong. As I’m sitting there getting annoyed at him, I realize maybe I’m wrong about his state of mind. Maybe he is trying to get it in his own way and it s a way I don’t understand. And it’s okay if I’m wrong about him.

It’s kind of freeing actually. The freedom to be wrong. We don’t get that opportunity often as HR professionals. We’re supposed to have the answers. Maybe we need to take some of that advice we’ve been doling out and be okay with failure.

So here you go HR tribe: be okay with being wrong every once in a while. You might just learn something about yourself.